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Iris Love 01Dec07


She ran through the forest crying, the hot hears warming her face in the cold; who would have guessed that the first snowfall of the year would accompany such pain?
Ayame, a woman, age 18, stood at 5'4" tall, her green eyes accented by her deep black hair, kept straight and long, down to her waist. She wore a short kimono this evening, for the new year's festival, and was planning to tell Him she'd loved him since they first spoke.
His honesty and care, his utter beauty and aura of wisdom; she loved everything about him. But when she'd gone to the place where they were to meet...
Ayame'd seen Takuto and Yumi together, holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes with utmost love and adoration. She'd never had a chance, she realized, and began running, her sandals falling from her feet as she ran, the cold snow melting and seeping into her socks.
Ayame didn't care. She felt oblivious and foolish, unworthy of the love that filled her body.
"I will dedicate everything to finding love for those around me," she vowed, slowing to a stop and wiping the now-cold saltwater from her face. breathing heavily, she glanced down at her feet and, seeing a blue iris flower, kneeling down beside it to gently pluck it from where it sat.
"How are you still alive, precious ayame?" she whispered to the flower, shuddering at the cold that raked down her spine and holding the iris close to her heart.
"I showed her love and kindness, and she repaid me by blooming," came a low voice from behind her. "I took care of her."
Ayame recognized the voice: it was Tyson Smith, the boy who'd been her best friend since they were 10.
Standing and turning to him, she gasped aloud at the raw emotion she saw reflected in his eyes. "So, the iris loves you back?" she asked softly, her breath puffing out in clouds before her lips as she spoke.
She'd never realized how Tyson had felt for her, and wondered if Takuto was that ignorant of her feelings.
Stepping forward, Ayame reached out slowly with her left hand, the iris cradled carefully in her right palm, and took Tyson's hand in hers, bringing it closer to her body so she would be able to place the iris in his capable hands.
"Yes, I do believe she does," Tyson breathed back in response to Ayame's question. "Well, what do you think?" he asked, taking the blue flower and gently tucking it into Ayame's hair, just behind her left ear.
"I do believe she does," Ayame whispered, before kissing him softly. Iris Love?

Remembrance

As I finished cleaning the closet, I noticed the floorboard. Memories flooded back into my mind immediately, and I couldn’t help but smile, reaching up to tuck stray strands of hair behind my ears. I’d grown it back out since our marriage, instead of the short, boyish cut I’d had it in during our senior year. It was down to my waist now, the seemingly unremarkable brown tresses glowing with a tinge of red in a stray beam of sunlight streaming in through the window.
When I reached over to the floorboard to pry it open, I was grinning full-out; the creaking was exactly the same as when I’d first pried it open to set the shoebox inside!
“Oh, memories, memories . . . ,” I whispered gleefully. I’d become giddy and giggly, now that I had the box in my hands. I plopped backward onto my behind to examine it.
“Adios!” I crowed, laughing. “Sweet!” I knew why I’d chosen that brand for the shoebox: my very first pair of ‘skater shoes’ were black Adios, with little pink ‘heartograms’ all over as a design. If Danny hadn’t been a skater back in the day, I would never have discovered the comfort of ‘skater shoes.’
I reached over to my sweater, draped over the back of my chair, and fished around inside its pockets for my old pocketknife. “I’ve had you as long as I’ve had all this,” I murmured to the piece of cold steel. No, I was not crazy; I only thought aloud often.
I flipped the blade open and cut the tape holding the lid to the shoebox, then set the knife down, before opening the “treasure chest.” As I settled for that nickname, I giggled again. “I’d loved ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ around that time, too…”
I set the box down and took out the item that was on top: an old skateboard wheel. It was almost white on the sides, with the rest of it a very dirty grey.
*~*
I remembered taking the wheel: it was when his board finally gave out and snapped in two, as he attempted a trick. ‘He’ being Danny, of course. Armando and I burst out laughing when it happened; Daniel was running around, screaming that his heart was broken, an inside joke. Armando, Daniel, and I spray-painted a giant red heart on the bottom side of Daniel’s board. After a few moments of Danny’s fit, he shrugged and ran over to me, scooping me up into his arms and kissing me sweetly on the lips.
“He’d said, ‘My heart isn’t broken,’” I whispered, reaching up with my right hand and brushing the fingertips across the area of my chest over my heart. “’My heart is right there.’”
*~*
Setting the wheel beside me on the light brown, wooden floor, I looked inside the box, at the Ziploc bag full of deep purple, dried up rose petals. “When I stayed with Grams,” I laughed breathlessly. Danny had picked the rose from a wild bush, pricking his thumb and forefinger by accident in the process. “I felt so bad, especially when he handed it to me…”
*~*
The door slammed downstairs. “Mom?” a young boy’s voice floated up to my ears.
“I’m in my room, Joseph!” I called back to him, inviting him up to join me, along with his little sister Evelyn.
When the two filed in, their faces were slightly rosy from the cold weather outside. It was January, after all. I asked them how their day went, as it was heir first day back from winter break.
*~*
Joseph looked into the box and snatched up an old photograph in its intricately designed frame. The frame was silver, taking the shape of an unrolled scroll, with a feather quill vertically positioned on its left side. The details were excruciatingly beautiful…
“Auntie Laryna looks so… young here!” Evelyn blurted, looking at the picture over Joseph’s shoulder.
I grinned and nodded. “That was at graduation,” I murmured thoughtfully. My children were both in elementary school; Evelyn a second grader, and Joseph a fourth grader. It was amazing how awed they were over a simple picture…
“That was Daddy’s ‘Pet Mexican,’ sweets,” I told them, pointing to Jeys Aguilar in the picture. I rolled my eyes. Danny had claimed Jeys as The Pet Mexican, with Jeys playing along, amusedly enough. “La migra!” I whispered, for old times’ sake. “Immigration,” I translated for the children.
And of course…
*~*
“It’s Mommy and Daddy!” Evelyn screeched, causing both Joseph and I to jump. Joseph rolled his eyes.
“Stupid. Duh that’s Mom and Dad,” he mumbled. I flicked him lightly on the ear.
“Play nice!”
I thought about all the differences in the friends in that picture: Armando Vasquez finally got his love, Laryna Billinghurst, back, and they were engaged! ‘Uncle Arma and Auntie Lynna…’
Anthony Travis was my closest friend since the year 2000. He was my children’s godfather, and Breeanna Wigmore, their godmother.
*~*
As the kids went off to do their homework, I reached back into the box and pulled out an old, worn piece of folded up notebook paper. “Ah… The Note,” I whispered, my voice shaky as I unfolded it.
“‘I had no idea, I would’ve never thought that happened, no wonder you were so guarded. You know I love you, I would never let anything happen to you…,’” I read aloud softly.
“‘Yours, Daniel,’” his voice sounded out from behind me. I whirled around to see the man I loved, the one whose eyes stared back at me from our children’s faces.
“Welcome home,” I breathed, standing and hugging him tightly. He gently took the ore from my hand when we pulled away.
“Ah… I was so glad when you opened up to me about the rape,” Daniel whispered, his breaths tickling my forehead. I felt my face burn crimson in shame of what had happened all those years ago.
Later, after dinner, Danny tucked the kids into bed and joined me on the wooden floor next to the Adios box. He rested his head against mine and pulled out the torn, orange wristband.
“You’re first time to the Adventuredome, right?” he asked. I nodded and shrugged my shoulders heavily.
“I sprained my wrist holding onto the harness on the rolly coaster,” I muttered, using my nickname for the ride. “I was terrified…”
Danny laughed and nodded. “Your scream hurt my ears!”
I shoved him hard and rolled my eyes.
*~*
I ran my fingers over the last two items in the box: a movie ticket and a Post-It note.
The Post-It read, “Neonopolis; 09/08/2007; 2:25PM showing; arrive at noon!”
Danny snickered. “You still have a bad memory for little things. I can’t believe you had to write down the info for your own birthday gathering!” he teased. I shoved him again.
“Well I… Shut up!” I mumbled, blushing. The movie ticket read, “Halloween; 09/08/2007; 2:25 P.M.”
It was my first R-rated movie. On my seventeenth birthday, Danny, Armando, and Anthony were with me, to watch the ‘scary’ film…
“That movie sucked,” I said solemnly. Danny nodded just as seriously.
*~*
As I drifted to sleep that night, I recapped my walk down memory lane, the road to remembrance of the little things.
I slept well that night.

Thinking of how things were back then, when everything seemed so simple, yet to find out just how wrong those thoughts were, I've learned. Things changed greatly, in only a few days, as I learned that the word love is sometimes only thrown around, not really meant.

Insight gained, after speaking to an unlikely friend, I learned that things aren't always as they seem, though we wish for them to be. As things change, and personalities are revealed, we learn a lot about ourselves as well.

They say, Things aren't always as they seem, but do they really know?

Daniel, Armando... You assume they are both bad, when they are only different. Having had a heart-to-heart with My Freshman, I've learned that Larry hasn't changed at all from when we hung out with him. He only responded to a threat, though the threat was murmured in jest.

The Past: You use your hindsight, and say, "I should have done this, I should have done that," but can you really say that you would have ever done that? As peple change, so do the frames shaping our minds, and how we view the world as a whole, as well as separate things.

The Future: We all had something in mind, and those dreams change over time, naturally, based on our mindsets, and personalities. The way we do things, and what we like, what we are talented at, affect the outcomes of our futures, of course. As well as the people we associate ourselves with. You make friends, and only rarely are they true. The ones you keep up with constantly, and truly care about, are ones you can stay by forever. The few who return the favor are the true friends, and the ones you can actually spend your life knowing.

The Present: The most important aspect, currently, we are in school, and our pasts are being applied to our lives, social and academic, while our futures are being thought about and planned out.


Wow, this changed, since I began typing it... I meant it to be a free-write about change, and thought; the way things are, versus the way things seem. Things are iffy now, because we thought they were the bad guys, but who really started it?

Get to know someone, maybe you'll [********] see what they're really about, eh? His main thing is finding someone who will be with him, no matter what, and not just for his body. He wants someone who can relate to his problems, and understand who he really is. A best friend, who he could possibly marry one day.

So don't write him off as some troublemaker, and tell me to stay away from him. I've already made it known: it's too late.